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Re: test/quiz banks



This is actually part of the motivation of WebAssign. WebAssign has
a shared database of questions. As a result, teachers can write
questions, classify them, and make them public. Then others can
search the questions and use them. If you don't want to use the
questions on WebAssign, you could print them out I suppose.

Version 4 which is being beta-tested has improved features for
classifying questions so that teachers can more easily search for and
find shared questions in the database.

If you do sign up for WebAssign, let me know. I have written at
least 10-20 questions per chapter for the first 14 chapters of the
Young and Freedman book. I'd be happy to give you the "code" (that's
what WebAssign calls the name one gives to a question) by which you
can easily search and find the questions.

AT


Friends,

I'm teaching General Physics again for the first time in several years, using
Young & Freedman, 10th ed. I was impressed by the nice test generator
software that allows questions (even with attached figures) to be inserted
into a test, scrambling the multiple choice answers, changing the input data,
changing the order of questions for multiple versions of the same test.

But...!

I am disappointed in the small number and lack of variety of available
questions, and my current course load and other administrative
responsibilities don't allow me much time to add to the question bank.
Moreover, most of the questions seem to be available at the student online
resources website
<http://occawlonline.pearsoned.com/bookbind/pubbooks/young_awl/chapter1/deluxe.html>,
which further reduces the testbank's usefulness to the instructor.

I'm not complaining about the student website -- it's a good thing. But we
should have _many_ more questions to draw from, or the students who simply
study from the website have an unfair advantage. Or to say it another way,
instructors simply cannot use the TestGen software with the current testbank.

Have any other instructors using this book started a larger question pool, or
more generally, a question bank for this level class? If such a thing doesn't
exist already, perhaps we could set up a site where instructors could add
contributions. Many hands make light work, as the saying goes. I'd have time
to contribute a few questions from time to time, particularly with the
encouragement of seeing that others were doing so also. As soon as the
question pool reached a certain size (I'd say about 100 questions per topic)
it would become a very useful supplement indeed.

Any help or suggestions appreciated!

Ken Caviness
Physics Dept.
Southern Adventist University
<http://www.southern.edu/~caviness/>

This posting is the position of the writer, not that of SUNY-BSC,
NAU or the AAPT.


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This posting is the position of the writer, not that of SUNY-BSC, NAU or the AAPT.